News Release
New Delhi, 30 March 2002
A new hilarious twist will be added to the timeworn April Fool’s Day this year as Osho World Foundation declares 1st April as Mulla Nasrudin Day in honour of this laughing mystic.
At 6 p.m. every evening from 1 to 7 April, Osho World Galleria in New Delhi’s Ansal Plaza will be rocking with laughter as Osholovers will share rip-roaring jokes of the Mulla. A favourite of Osho in his discourses, these Mulla jokes with a deep spiritual message will also be related on tape in the inimitable style of Osho. It will all add up to an hour of uninhibited laughing meditation that has proved so popular at the Galleria. Well known Hindi humour poet Surendra Sharma and other top poets will regale everyone during this week.
But who is this Mulla Nasrudin? Replies, Osho, “Born in Iran, Nasrudin is a Sufi mystic, a little crazy, but always tremendously wise.
“To be Mulla Nasrudin means two things: Be foolish in your wisdom and be wise in your foolishness. It is a very great contradiction. Be wise in your foolishness and be foolish in your wisdom.
You should be aware of the fact that Mulla Nasrudin is a Sufi device. It is to make you clear that life is wise in its foolishness. And when you try to be wise you become a fool. The greatest wise people are like fools. And the greatest foolish people are those who pretend that they are wise. If you have to choose, choose the fool and you will become wise. Don’t choose to pretend wisdom, otherwise you will become a fool.”
Explains Osho, “Mulla Nasrudin is a simple man with utter purity – every act in his life is full of wisdom, but on the surface looks a little crazy. He belongs to the same category as Bodhidharma, as Mahakashyap. But he is a little more eccentric than any of them. Who has recognized Mulla Nasrudin? Very few people. Who has recognized Mahakashyap suddenly laughing? Only Gautama Buddha. Ten thousand monks were present but nobody could understand this eccentric behavior. But it was arising out of the empty heart, from a clarity of vision. Only another man of the same clarity can understand it.”
“The Japanese awakened soul Hotei has been called the laughing Buddha. For what is he laughing? – his whole teaching was laughing. Seeing this ridiculousness that people are not what they are thinking they are, and people are what they never dream about…. It is a cosmic joke, but one has to understand it to come
to a point when one can become a laughing Buddha. And I want the world filled with laughing Buddhas, not the serious ones. We need the whole earth filled with laughter, and not ordinary laughter but cosmic laughter – a laughter that arises out of the understanding that it is a beautiful joke existence has played with us.”
Osho concludes, “Buddha’s message in short is: Be a light unto yourself. And mine? Be a joke unto yourself! Being a joke unto yourself, you will be a bliss for everyone.”
Swami Chaitanya Keerti
